I've been thinking about putting together another TeachMeet in the new term. Part of the thinking has been about trying a stripped back, low (no?) tech version, with the emphasis firmly on sharing ideas not technology. A sort of 'TeachMeet - unplugged', if you will.
This is in response to a few concerns I have about TeachMeets, which I think such an approach might address -
- the technology seems to be be taking over a bit, bringing in mainly those teachers who are quite 'techy' and, perhaps, turning off those who are not
- TeachMeets can end up 'preaching to the choir', the idea (and its undoubted benefits) can only grow if it increases its appeal by bringing in more first time attendees
- organising TeachMeets increasingly involves some level of 'sponsorship chase', either organisers chasing funds for venues/catering etc, or sponsors chasing exposure to a captive audience
The difficulty of such an approach, obviously, is how to share the event outside of the venue?
Having run live internet feeds for a few TeachMeets, the level of live interaction with the web audience has been quite low (though that could just be the ones I've done). One of the most useful things would be to have some sort of archive of material - slides, links, documents, wikis, etc relating to the presentations.
I figure if some attendees could record presentations, through audio/video/photographs, this material could be aggregated through a posterous site (or similar), as has been tried at other TeachMeets - e.g. TMAyr. Ideally as many people as possible would record this material, though how many people collecting this material would be enough to make it worthwhile?
Any thoughts?
Totally agree Drew, especially the idea of attracting new attendees!
I've been to 2 in person and watched 5 or 6 online and it's very similar ideas being presented at each, with the same core following.
Something that I'd definitely like to see is 1 or 2 short presentations being submitted by video and shown in place of a physical presenter. We'd increase the variety of speakers possible, and include those who perhaps have no means of travelling to the event.
There does seem to be a more varied attendance at the online streaming, so there is teachers out there who'd like to attend but can't. Perhaps having a 5 minute Q&A/discussion after the first grouping of presentations, then another at the end. Comments/questions/suggestions could then be submitted throughout by those watching online and would encourage more active participation.
I don't think a completely disconnected event is the way to go though, as you suggested in your post, this would severely limit our ability to share with those not physically in the room, but an event where the use of tech is discouraged could work well I think!
[...] local roots of TeachMeet. I think that’s almost what I was thinking about with my ideas about TeachMeet Unplugged, but I’m now prepared to go one step [...]